Friday, August 16, 2013

Foodie Non-Friday: Salted Caramel Pretzel Bark

So,
I clearly have been somewhat absent this week. Not so’s you would necessarily
notice but I could possibly be accused of “mailing it in”; I submit the
following exhibits for your perusal, Your Honor: first a Youtube video on
Monday, nothing on Tuesday, a photo (accompanied by a Youtube video) on
Wednesday, nothing Thursday.

Which
brings us to today. Finally Friday.

To
be honest, it’s not so much a matter of me being lazy…it’s been another
four-letter word: B.U.S.Y.

Frankly
it’s not letting up any time soon.

And
it’s fine because I turn out such quality writing otherwise that I am certain you
will all be there for me when I do actually find time to write.

OK,
that’s not true…I HOPE you will all be there for me when I actually do find
time to write…no pridefulness here, I assure you.

Well,
maybe a little.

But
all this surmising to say: MAYBE it will be better writing because I save up
all that good writing for a few specialized posts instead of dumping a whole
bunch of nothing on a daily basis.

This
is highly unlikely but I float it out there in an effort to get your hopes up.

Have
I?

And
speaking of high hopes, I have a recipe I have been DYING to share with you. It
is one I MAY have made this past
week.

Or
I MAY have made it twice…in the past
week.

For
the record I did give a container of it (albeit a small container) to my
parents…they deserved more but I wasn’t feeling overly-generous. And I am totally ratting them out here, but I am not entirely certain that the PBA wanted me to give any away. (It's clearly a big hit at our house.)

Some
may call it stingy.

So
now that you are writhing with anticipation, I give you:

Salted
Caramel Pretzel Bark

If you listen closely, you can hear the choir of angels singing.

Have
you ever heard of such a glorious thing? I thought the salted chocolate chip
cookies were good, but this.is.AMAZING. I shall include the recipe, lest you
care to make it for your family. I had all of the ingredients and it is highly
likely that you will too (assuming you eat an inordinately large amount of
pretzels such as we do…you’ll have those on hand...everything else I would venture to guess you have.) So are you ready for the big reveal? Here we go:

2 sticks of butter (for my friends across the pond, that would be 226.81 grams)

1 cup of light brown sugar

1 regular-size bag of small-twist pretzels (you'll use about 3/4 of
the bag)

12 ounce bag of chocolate chips

Sea salt or coarse Kosher salt

Preheat the oven to 400.

Line a large bar pan with parchment paper (I’m pretty sure you’ll want to do
this otherwise you’ll have most of the bark stuck to the pan, and whole adventure will be for naught) and cover with
pretzels.

In a medium saucepan, melt the butter over medium-low heat.

When it begins to bubble, add the brown sugar. Stirring
occasionally let the butter/sugar mixture meld together and brown. This should
take about 3 minutes. Do NOT let it boil, you will have sticky goo that is no
good.

When you have a nice, brown caramel, pour it over the pretzels,
slowly and evenly. FYI: It hardens fast so even pouring is the best method (versus
trying to spread it).

Bake the sheet for 5 minutes.

Remove the sheet from the oven and sprinkle the whole bag of chocolate chips
evenly over the mixture.

Place back in the oven for about 45 seconds. If you put it in longer, the
chocolate will burn.

Remove from the oven and use a silicone spatula to evenly spread the chocolate
over the top.

Sprinkle with sea salt and refrigerate for a minimum of 1 hour.

The bark should easily pop off the parchment paper; break into pieces and enjoy
(and trust me…you will enjoy!)

I apologize for the lack of a
personal photo (I swiped it from someone else who had swiped it...and so it goes); frankly it never even occurred to me to take one.

And even if it had, I
fear that the melted chocolate and/or the sea salt on my fingers would have
been detrimental to my phone/camera (I don’t have a separate camera anymore…that’s
why I always make sure my favorite photographer accompanies me to the majority
of my children’s sporting events, vacations, and any photo-worthy event in
general.)

And if it wasn’t the chocolate
or the salt, it might possibly have been the saliva from me licking the aforementioned
items from my fingers.

Don’t judge.

And don’t pass this recipe by…it
just might blow.you.away.

NOTE: Also makes a good ice
cream topping…you know, for when you get down to the dregs of the batch and
eating those with a spoon out of the bowl seems more than slightly wrong. Put
it on ice cream and I assure you there’s no shame at all.

Ha - I always wondered what a stick was. Who came up with these ways of measurements - sticks and cups instead of simple grams and ounces (I use ounces too Lizzi - does that make us old fashioned or modern?)

I'm just lazy...and actually I just discovered the gloriousness of parchment paper so I'm using it all the time. Maybe I'll try it without...and if it's a big mess to clean up I'll send it your way. ;)

Random Stuff About Me

I will be fostering (hence the blog name…see what I did there? No, not just a clever name b/c I am a foster care advocate; this technique is called a double-entendre…look at me teaching so much already. Perhaps I under-estimated myself and my educational abilities...) the woman I feel God has meant me to be: a writer, a sharer, a story-teller, a friend, a listener, a prayer-warrior and lots of other hopefully-funny, silly, and crazy things.